Determine how the hospital can increase their cultural strategic thinking to ensure patients are addressed with care and compassion regardless of their individual culture and beliefs. When you get into the habit of cultural strategic thinking, you will begin thinking on an unconscious level and not even recognize that you are using strategic thinking. WebCultural strategic thinking helps you to discard what you think you know and to apply new information concerning what the situation could be. For additional information about The Five-Step Problem-Solving Process, click the link to that article. One that seems particularly relevant for schools is: Strategic thinking focuses on finding and developing unique opportunities to create value by enabling a provocative and creative dialogue among people who can affect a companys direction. (Center for Applied Research, cited in Haycock, 2012) They shouldnt be ongoing projects or initiatives without a defined end. Time and opportunities fly by, so plan your time and resources strategically to get where you want to go. Negative attitudes and impressions will hinder your work. Tactics: Theyd give a bunch of different projects to the employees throughout the year so they would have the chance to work in different areas. Expansion into culturally diverse markets (global or domestic) High quality service to culturally diverse customers, patients, or students. "name": "What is the definition of strategic thinking? To hasten the adoption of a culture of strategic thinking, you need to make it a part of your employees routines. Because cultural intelligence is intentional, you are also better able to regulate your emotions and feelings. Metacognition: The Skill Every Global Leader Needs However, the publisher has asked for the customary Creative Commons attribution to the original publisher, authors, title, and book URI to be removed. They apply those insights as they carry out organizational priorities and provide input to the overall strategy. Strategic Thinking Culturally intelligent leaders must have excellent observation skills, never failing to hear and see the tangible and intangible. Theyre more specific than vision, and theyre what will get you from point A to point B. Cultural Competence and Patient Safety December 27, 2019 Background Culture can be defined as the personal identification, language, thoughts, communications, actions, customs, beliefs, values, and institutions that are often specific to ethnic, racial, religious, geographic, or social groups. Come up with some indicators to measure your progress and determine if your strategic plan is working. Through observation and active listening, you pick up what you normally do not see. Janice Molloy is a content researcher with Harvard Business Publishing Corporate Learning. With strategic thinking, employees at all levels and in all functions continually scan for new ways to contribute to the organizations success. Then provide them with resources to begin implementing those plans. Acknowledge the progress that they make and devise a reward system. You have to think positively about a situation, and you need to be and stay positive, maintaining a positive energy and attitude throughout. In todays business context, it is described in terms of goals. The important decisions are about solving specific problems. Strategic thinking involves thinking about larger, macro issues, in contrast to the micro focus that many tend to take. Strategic Thinking So, strategic thinking is planning combined with adapting to changes in order to reach the ultimate goal. Strategic Thinking | People & Culture We also use different external services like Google Webfonts, Google Maps, and external Video providers. Heres what Mason had to say: I often think Im expected to have all the answers about what to do with digital strategy. The second advantage is that if you try a solution and it doesnt work, you have multiple backup plans at your disposal. Next was $10,000. Vision: A teen clothing brand wanted to show that the company cared about the environment just like its young customers. We need to get rid of goals that no longer serve a purpose and replace them with ones that work better. WebDefining Strategic Thinking Leveraging Operational Strengths Executing Strategy at the Operational Level Creating an Innovative Culture Planning for Operational Change Securing Stakeholder Commitment Get This Course $2,650 Standard Government Team 3-day instructor-led training course One-on-one after-course instructor coaching In general, the term has been interchangeably used with any concept related to Strategy, vision, goals, and planning. Strategic Planning The basics of developing and practicing cultural strategic thinking are to (a) connect new information to the old, (b) select the appropriate One of the best things to do in developing cultural strategic thinking is to learn to be an observer. "text": "Strategic Thinking is a process of identifying ways to move a person, team, or organization toward a long-term goal. This might include diminishing the fetishization of athletics at the service academies, for example. "mainEntity": [{ The future will undoubtedly look a lot different from today. It requires experience with and reflection on the particular business organization to be most effective. Case Study: From Hometown to Global Village. If you come across a situation in which a cultural fact seems to contradict what you know, take the time to learn about the difference and the nuances related to that cultural fact. proposes that when you change your questions in any given situation, this allows you to change your thinking. Can you think of a story of amazing success in your life? That may be because of our tendency to equate strategic thinking with strategic planning. But the reality is that I lead a very talented team, and one of the ideas that we have tried to engender on the team is that good ideas can come from anywhere. JOHN MATTONE GLOBAL, INC. With strategic thinking, employees at all levels and in all functions continually scan for new ways to contribute to the organizations success. Your writing serves as a reflection of your thinking processes and how you have dealt with, or how you could not deal with, the process. This strategic thinking culture has helped the tech-giant stay ahead of the curve and inspired many of its innovations. /wp-content/uploads/2018/12/HBPubCorpLearn_wide_crimson.svg, Strategic Thinking: Because Good Ideas Can Come From Anywhere. } 4.3: Techniques for Developing Strategic Thinking We should have been measuring the results that the students receive from the training. Because cultural intelligence is intentional, you are also better able to regulate your emotions and feelings. Anticipate possible challenges and identify ways to deal with them before they occur. Showing strategic thinking skills tells your bosses that youre able to think for yourself and make decisions that position the organization for the future. wrote that learning about a new culture requires putting all the pieces of a pattern together when you do not know the totality of what that whole picture should look like. Here are some simple questions to find out if you need any improvements. All change starts at the top, so your first Practicing to be an active listener is making a conscious choice about your responses to others. Eventually, we realized that our customers were being forced to transform their in-person meetings to virtual. Strategic Thinking Did it happen by chance, or did you plan and take action to achieve success? A useful tool I have used in my workshops and classes is writing down experiences and thoughts related to a cultural situation. Case Study: Building a Multicultural TeamIs it Worth it? You learn to enact truly meaningful change rather than make incremental improvements. The Greek word strategy comes from Stratos (army or resource) and ago (to lead), so the definition is quite literal. The term is trendy in business circles. How to Build a Culture of Strategic Thinking - John Mattone Global, However, after managing my own company for over 20 years, I now better understand what the interviewer was getting at. In your review of the situation, you may need to research unfamiliar terms or gestures used, or you may need to break down the picture and rebuild it, step by step, to understand if you really understood the whole picture. Think about it as playing cultural detective: You ask your peers questions, and they clarify the information for you, and when they ask you questions, you clarify your thinking process for them. Asking questions in a different way provides us with another perspective. It should allocate resources, set timelines, and define tactical actions. Cultural Strategic Thinking Techniques - GitHub Pages It could be a certain amount of money you hope to earn or a dream job, or a target related to your current job that you hope to accomplish. Click to enable/disable Google reCaptcha. Strategy: He decided to find ways to get involved in activities his kids liked. "acceptedAnswer": { Strategic thinking is characterized by an all-pervasive unwillingness to expend resources. How to Demonstrate Your Strategic Thinking Skills Get a better handle onyour life goals and ambitions. Having a culture like this will give a big boost to the growth of the company. Normally, the author and publisher would be credited here. More information is available on this project's attribution page. Resource Allocation. A strategy that is often employed in the practice of cultural strategic thinking is to create peer-learningWorking with peers to question and explore cultural interactions to resolve cultural problems. Strategy is a state of mind as much as a documented plan, and a strategic leader must be able to instill that mindset in others. Additionally, per the publisher's request, their name has been removed in some passages. The companies culture also motivates employees to strive for their goals. Why is that person so clueless and frustrating? Strategic thinking - Wikipedia Good ideas can come from anywhere. Most of us recognize the wisdom embedded in that statement, yet we still see strategy as the realm of our organizations senior leaders. And they have to be agile learners who identify opportunities by challenging their own and their teams assumptions about how things work in their organization and industry. This forces you to think and plan If so, how do get them to be more enthused about the change?. For instance, if you want to double revenue for your organization, that is pretty hard. It is a critical skill in cultural intelligence because the behavior acknowledges that you have really heard what another person has said. It is always created within the context of your vision. It includes goals, objectives, planning, resources, and more. wrote that learning about a new culture requires putting all the pieces of a pattern together when you do not know the totality of what that whole picture should look like. In gaining cultural knowledge, it is very helpful to get into the habit of checking your facts and knowledge about a culture. You can also change some of your preferences. Some people will talk to themselves; others find it helpful to have someone to talk to. Note. If thats the case,it wont hurt to find out what theyre doing differently, sopick up a trick or two to try in our own lives. Active listening focuses your mind on the speaker, and, if done repeatedly and successfully, you are able to build trust and a relationship with others. As a leader, this is a great way of providing a model for those who have difficulty with cultural strategic thinking. These are all different aspects of successful strategic planning. 400 SW 1st Avenue Life happens, and none of us has absolute control over everything happening around us. Lets break it down into its three primary components: 1. It can facilitate an effective cultural interaction with less conflict, confusion, and frustration. Cultural Strategic Thinking Techniques - Open Textbooks for Hong It also serves as a memory of your experiences, which you can later refer back to and learn from. You can do this by reminding yourself or by setting goals centered around the following actions: Active listeningThe ability of an individual to understand, interpret, reflect on, and respond to what that individual just heard. He currently holds multiple professional designations, including PMP, CBAP, PMI-PBA and ITIL. Cultural strategic thinking helps you to discard what you think you know and to apply new information concerning what the situation could be. Being able to think strategically is one of the most important leadership traits. While strategic thinking is a valuable skill This book is licensed under a Creative Commons by-nc-sa 3.0 license. We often think of continuous improvement as being with processes. Its also important to take deliberate action when necessary by looking at your progress. I have certainly come across leaders who have attended my sessions because leadership told them they had to, and it affects their learning environment in a negative way and often interrupts the learning of their peers. In those cases, you want to increase the goal. Then, I posted copies of that printout at my desk, my car audio console, and my bathroom mirror. I have also drawn up a series of concrete steps to help you develop this competency: Your next step is to propagate strategic thinking throughout your organization, at every leadership level. I encourage you to write down your emotions and feelings, the ambiguities and inconsistencies, and the challenges and successes of working interculturally. Note that blocking some types of cookies may impact your experience on our websites and the services we are able to offer. Lead by example. The output of this exercise is your strategic plan. So if you are using strategic thinking, how do you know if you need to make an adjustment. If you only have a Plan A, you have no way to strategically adjust to an unanticipated challenge. In cultural strategic thinking, it is important to talk about what you will do or what you have to do. To address these problems, you need to invest time, energy, and resources into developing a vision, building strategy skills, and drawing up a viable strategic plan. Using that cultural situation as a Kodak moment, take the opportunity to reread the picture to see if you really understood how that cultural fact was used. Poor leaders tend to be more reactionary. What is the other person feeling, needing, and wanting? Other strategic thinking practices are useful for training yourself to see opportunities and threats well before they happen. In others, the marketplace may change or we may uncover competitive intelligence where we change the goal altogether. This is Cultural Strategic Thinking Techniques, section 4.4 from the book Cultural Intelligence for Leaders (v. 1.0). Strategic thinking, on the other hand, is a mindset and technique that everyone in an organization can and should practice. It is a critical skill in cultural intelligence because the behavior acknowledges that you have really heard what another person has said. If however, you set the goal to run a marathon and just start running, the moment you get tired, you will likely quit. Featuring Executive Search, our new arm of recruiting just for our clients at UC Berkeley. To create a culture of strategic thinking permeating every operational aspect, you need to take a few additional steps: To create a strategic thinking culture, you need to build up the right mental framework. Using that cultural situation as a Kodak moment, take the opportunity to reread the picture to see if you really understood how that cultural fact was used. Are your plans and actions bringing you closer to the things that matter the most?